From Olympus with Love
by delos13
Summary: It's Alexander's birthday and Hera found a perfect gift for the king. After some arguments Zeus agreed to this present too. Well, let see how it goes.


_Author's note: This story was written to celebrate the birthday of Alexander. This is a pure fiction and meant to be entertaining, so please don't judge harshly technological and linguistic absurdities present in this story. The historical characters belong to themselves and non-historical to human imagination. _

_~~~~~~~~~In Greek mythology Iris was the goddess of rainbow and Hera's messenger. _

_I hope you'll enjoy the story; readers' comments are truly appreciated and bring joy to my heart. Happy reading!_

_ O_

Apollo wasn't sure what made him to wake up but he wasn't happy about it, he could definitely enjoy a few more hours of sleep. He was about to close his eyes and return to his dreams again when his blurry vision registered Hermes sitting on his bed and playing ball-in-a-cup game with a childish enthusiasm.

"Why did you wake me up?" asked Apollo petulantly.

"I didn't," responded his brother not taking his eyes from the cup.

"Stop this stupid game, it makes me dizzy," Apollo sat up and rather quickly for a person who was half asleep jerked Hermes' hand out of balance.

"Why did you do that?" resentfully asked the younger sibling, "I scored 117 straight hits, I never managed to do it before, especially with so much distraction.

"What kind of distraction?" asked Apollo but before Hermes could answer, the angry screaming pierced the morning idyll of Olympus.

"Father and Hera having a difference of opinion," clarified the messenger god when the moment of quiet intermission followed the shouting, "by the way, this is what woke you up in the first place and not my peaceful presence."

"What are they arguing about this early in the morning?"

"Present for Alexander's birthday. Hera already arranged for one and father doesn't like it, he says it will diminish his masculinity."

"I always suspected that Hera wanted Hephaistion for herself."

"Oh, no, not in that sense," laughed Hermes, "more like diminish his reputation of the greatest king, his ability to do everything on his own, without anybody's help."

"All right, if you say so. What's the present, anyway?"

"A GPS."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Well, you know, that thing from the future that allows one to find the correct route from point A to point B without getting lost….in most cases."

"I see. Interesting choice. I wonder how did she come up with this brilliant idea and who fetched such a device for her from the future. Anybody I know?" Apollo smiled at Hermes.

The younger brother shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. "Yes, but it wasn't me. I am not at Hera's beg and call and definitely not in her confidence. It was Iris. So, what do you think about it?"

"What do I think about it? Women and technology don't go hand in hand together, even when those women are goddesses."

"Why would you say that?"

"Because. Isn't it obvious? GPS works from electricity and relies on satellites, this present is useless for Alexander."

Hermes eyes lit up, "It's a great idea. I am going to point this out to our father. Then I suggest that he can power the device himself with his thunderbolts and make it work without satellites. I am sure our father can do it, what do you think?"

"Of course the almighty Zeus can do anything."

"Beautiful. This way father and Hera can share the honor of presenting this useful gift to Alexander and everybody will live happily ever after."

"And I can go back to sleep," mumbled Apollo and fell back onto his pillows.

O

"Look what I got," Alexander shook Hephaistion's shoulder with enthusiasm.

"Can't it wait?" mumbled Hephaistion refusing to open his eyes. The last few days were really exhausting and Hephaistion had just a few hours of sleep each night. Alexander was still weak from his wound at Malian city and was forbidden by Kritodemos the surgeon to do any strenuous work. Not that Alexander would listen to his physician even if he indeed still felt weak, but the surgeon had an unwavering support of the whole army who got scared of coming so close to losing Alexander to the realm of Hades. As a result of it many additional tasks fell on Hephaistion's shoulders and because not everybody was thrilled by necessity to follow Hephaistion's orders as if he was their supreme commander, the Chiliarch started to feel both physically and emotionally exhausted.

Alexander, on the other hand, being limited in his ability to challenge himself physically during the day, decided to compensate himself for the lack of exercise during the night and though Hephaistion was more than happy to accommodate his king's increased appetite for long hours of love making, the pleasurable activity drained the remaining of his already dwindling resources of endurance and stamina.

But then Hephaistion remembered that it was the morning of Alexander's birthday and he summoned all his inner strength to wake up when Alexander wanted him to wake up.

"All right, show me what you got," asked Hephaistion struggling to sit up and look cheerful.

"I love you," happily said Alexander and planted a smooch on his soul mate's lips. Then he coyly put a small flat box in Hephaistion's hand. The General looked in puzzlement at the strange thing and asked, "What is it?"

"A gift from the gods."

"How do you know it?" suspiciously asked Hephaistion.

"It was Iris herself who brought me the gift. It was still dark when I suddenly woke up and I saw her in the middle of the room. She had radiant wings, they were so incredibly beautiful and mesmerizing. I never saw anything like that before. She told me it was present from the Olympians. Do you believe me?" asked Alexander when he saw how Hephaistion knitted his brows in what the king thought was a sign of doubt.

"Of course I believe you but the gifts from the gods never brought any good to mortals."

"They gave me you!" enthusiastically exclaimed Alexander, "and though they never can outdo this most precious gift, I have no reason to fear anything they bestow on me."

"All right," Hephaistion felt stupid knowing he was blushing listening to Alexander's description of him as the best gift from the Immortals, "you convinced me. What is this thing for?"

"Ah!" Alexander's eyes lit with joy and excitement. "This devise can show the shortest or fastest route from one place to another. No more relying on wrong maps, treacherous guides or fantasies of men who never been to places that they described. Now guess what's going to be our next destination."

"I don't know," carefully said Hephaistion though knowing Alexander as well as he did, he wasn't surprised when Alexander announced, "We finally going to reach the End of the Earth. My troops can't complain any more that we don't know where we are going. The gods themselves will guide us."

"Maybe before announcing this to the Army we should check what this device shows us?" carefully asked Hephaistion.

"Of course. Look, I am going to explain to you how it works. See this small switch? If you shift it from right to left, the device will come up alive. Like this." Alexander demonstrated his recently acquired knowledge to Hephaistion. "Iris showed me how to operate it."

Hephaistion watched with fascination how the device lit up. "What's terms and conditions?" he asked reading in the bewilderment the first words that appeared at the top of the screen.

"Some legal nonsense. Iris told me I didn't have to read all that, just scroll down and press on 'Agree'."

"How can you agree to something you don't know?"

"Do you want to read all that?" asked Alexander. Hearing the notes of frustration in his lover's voice, Hephaistion relented, "maybe later. Now what?"

"So, I press 'agree'," Alexander did as he said and a new screen appeared with six small pictures. The one with simplified version of a house draw Hephaistion's attention. The word 'home' was written under the pictogram.

"Will it show us the fastest route back to Macedon?" asked Hephaistion, almost immediately regretting his choice of words.

"Not necessarily. It can be whatever we want. If I press on it and enter the description as Babylon, whenever I choose this picture, it will show the best route to Babylon from any place we are. See this picture?" Alexander pointed to a circle with spikes. "It's called 'settings'. For example, we can choose whether the thing will show us the shortest route or the fastest route, which we know not always the same, also we can choose how the device will show us the distance."

"What do you mean?" asked Hephaistion with interest.

"Well, I presume we can choose between stadia and parasang. Let's see." Alexander tapped the screen and was presented with two choices 'miles' and 'kilometers'. "Hmm," he mused, "Do you know what those are?"

"How would I? Didn't Iris explain it all to you?"

"She did but not in details. Let's choose kilometers."

"Why?"

"I don't know how long a meter is but 'kilo' sounds very much as _chilioi,_ so I hope it also means a thousand, so it's a long measure. Besides, the beginning of this word and that of 'Chiliarch' sound almost identical, so it will always remind me and the whole Army about you."

"Do you again plan to send me away for a long time?" asked Hephaistion.

"Oh, no, no, nothing of the kind. I want you with me when we reach the end of the world. We can play with these choices later. Now, let's see where the end of the world is."

Alexander went back to the initial screen and choose "new destination" icon. Three options appeared before the excited faces of the king and his general. 'Enter GPS coordinates', 'enter the city' and 'enter the point of interest'.

"Hmm, it's not that easy. I don't know what GPS coordinates are and if I knew the name of the city where the end of the world is, I would march there on my own. Do you think end of the earth qualifies as point of interest?"

"I think yes," nodded Hephaistion in agreement. "Let's try it."

Alexander typed his heart's desire and both men stared in fascination at the rotating image of hourglass. They patiently waited for a few minutes but in the end were presented with disappointing words of "no results found."

"I think 'end of the world' is too vague description," said Hephaistion trying to erase the evident look of disappointment from his lover's face. "Let's try something simple. We planned to return to Susa, let's see if this thing will show us the best way to Susa."

"We can try," agreed Alexander unsuccessfully trying to hide from Hephaistion how upset he was, "but I know how to get to Susa, we already planned the route, remember?"

"Yes, I remember but we can see if this thing can suggest something else. Let's try the fastest route."

"All right," said Alexander and entered Susa as their destination. The GPS calculated something for a brief moment and then showed them the route from Patala to Susa via Arabian Sea and then up the river.

"Nearchus will be happy," smiled Hephaistion but Alexander didn't look excited.

"Maybe it's the fastest way but we don't have enough ships," mused the king.

"We don't have to, we can split the army; we'll go with Nearchus by sea route and take with us as many men as we can and the rest of the army will go with Krateros by the original route we designated," suggested Hephaistion. Suddenly he was very excited about the sea voyage. But as usual, Alexander had his own opinion.

"Sea route maybe the fastest, but let's see what's the shortest is," said Alexander and changed the settings. "Hmm," he pensively said when he got the results, "the shortest route takes us from here to Pura, the capital of Gedrosia, then to Pasargadae and then to Susa. I like this better."

But Hephaistion was less fond of this new idea. "After we nearly died getting to Siwah, I really hoped not to cross another desert till the rest of my life. I am sure the army feels the same."

"We got lost in Egypt because our guides either didn't know their craft or were traitors. Here the gods themselves are going to guide us, so we won't be lost. Besides, if we want to conquer Arabia, we should get used to deserts. This will be a perfect chance to train for our next challenge."

"Maybe we should better try to figure out how to reach the end of the earth," mumbled Hephaistion.

"Nonsense, the end of the world can wait. I'll split our army into three, one will go with Krateros by our original route, the other will go with Nearchus via Arabian Sea and the rest will go with me through Gedrosia. We'll make it a competition, the first part of the army to get to Susa will be declared a winner and everyone will get some prize. I hope you'll join me, though if you insist, you can go with Krateros."

"It's not fair, Alexander. Of course I will go with you."

"That's the spirit!" exclaimed Alexander and clapped Hephaistion on the back, "I know you don't like it but believe me, we are going to have a lot of fun."


End file.
